The light that failed: Captains courageous, a story of the Grand Banks (The Mandalay edition of the works of Rudyard Kipling)

The Light That Failed

Greatest Works of Rudyard Kipling: The Story of the Gadsbys,The Phantom Rickshaw, The Light that Failed, The Jungle Book,The Second Jungle Book,The White Man's Burden,Kim... & Other Indian Tales

Kim

The Light That Failed, Vol. 1 of 2 (Classic Reprint)

Prepared by David Reed haradda@aol.com or davidr@inconnect.com

The Light That Failed

by Rudyard Kipling

CHAPTER I

So we settled it all when the storm was done As comf'y as comf'y could be; And I was to wait in the barn, my dears, Because I was only three; And Teddy would run to the rainbow's foot, Because he was five and a man; And that's how it all began, my dears, And that's how it all began. -- Big Barn Stories.

'WHAT do you think she'd do if she caught us? We oughtn't to have it, you know,' said Maisie.

'Beat me, and lock you up in your bedroom,' Dick answered, without hesitation. 'Have you got the cartridges?'

"Yes; they're in my pocket, but they are joggling horribly. Do pin-fire cartridges go off of their own accord?'

'Don't know. Take the revolver, if you are afraid, and let me carry them.'

"I'm not afraid.' Maisie strode forward swiftly, a hand in her pocket and her chin in the air. Dick followed with a small pin-fire revolver.

The children had discovered that their lives would be unendurable without pistol-practice. After much forethought and self-denial, Dick had saved seven shillings and sixpence, the price of a badly constructed Belgian revolver. Maisie could only contribute half a crown to the syndicate for the purchase of a hundred cartridges. 'You can save better than I can, Dick,' she explained; 'I like nice things to eat, and it doesn't matter to you. Besides, boys ought to do these things.'

Dick grumbled a little at the arrangement, but went out and made the purchase, which the children were then on their way to test. Revolvers did not lie in the scheme of their daily life as decreed for them by the guardian who was incorrectly supposed to stand in the place of a mother to these two orphans. Dick had been under her care for six years, during which time she had made her profit of the allowances supposed to be expended on his clothes, and, partly through thoughtlessness, partly through a natural desire to pain,--she was a widow of some years anxious to marry again,--had made his days burdensome on his young shoulders.

Where he had looked for love, she gave him first aversion and then hate.

Where he growing older had sought a little sympathy, she gave him ridicule. The many hours that she could spare from the ordering of her small house she devoted to what she called the home-training of Dick Heldar. Her religion, manufactured in the main by her own intelligence and a keen study of the Scriptures, was an aid to her in this matter. At such times as she herself was not personally displeased with Dick, she left him to understand that he had a heavy account to settle with his Creator; wherefore Dick learned to loathe his God as intensely as he loathed Mrs. Jennett; and this is not a wholesome frame of mind for the young. Since she chose to regard him as a hopeless liar, but an economical and self-contained one, never throwing away the least unnecessary fib, and never hesitating at the blackest, were it only plausible, that might make his life a little easier. The treatment taught him at least the power of living alone,--a power that was of service to him when he went to a public school and the boys laughed at his clothes, which were poor in quality and much mended. In the holidays he returned to the teachings of Mrs. Jennett, and, that the chain of discipline might not be weakened by association with the world, was generally beaten, on one account or another, before he had been twelve hours under her roof.

The autumn of one year brought him a companion in bondage, a long-haired, gray-eyed little atom, as self-contained as himself, who moved about the house silently and for the first few weeks spoke only to the goat that was her chiefest friend on earth and lived in the back-garden. Mrs. Jennett objected to the goat on the grounds that he was un-Christian,--which he certainly was. 'Then,' said the atom, choosing her words very deliberately, 'I shall write to my lawyer-peoples and tell them that you are a very bad woman. Amomma is mine, mine, mine!' Mrs. Jennett made a movement to the hall, where certain umbrellas and canes stood in a rack. The atom understood as clearly as Dick what this meant. 'I have been beaten before,' she said, still in the same passionless voice; 'I have been beaten worse than you can ever beat me. If you beat me I shall write to my lawyer-peoples and tell them that you do not give me enough to eat. I am not afraid of you.' Mrs. Jennett did not go into the hall, and the atom, after a pause to assure herself that all danger of war was past, went out, to weep bitterly on Amomma's neck.

Dick learned to know her as Maisie, and at first mistrusted her profoundly, for he feared that she might interfere with the small liberty of action left to him. She did not, however; and she volunteered no friendliness until Dick had taken the first steps. Long before the holidays were over, the stress of punishment shared in common drove the children together, if it were only to play into each other's hands as they prepared lies for Mrs. Jennett's use. When Dick returned to school, Maisie whispered, 'Now I shall be all alone to take care of myself; but,' and she nodded her head bravely, 'I can do it. You promised to send Amomma a grass collar. Send it soon.' A week later she asked for that collar by return of post, and wa not pleased when she learned that it took time to make. When at last Dick forwarded the gift, she forgot to thank him for it.

Many holidays had come and gone since that day, and Dick had grown into a lanky hobbledehoy more than ever conscious of his bad clothes. Not for a moment had Mrs. Jennett relaxed her tender care of him, but the average canings of a public school--Dick fell under punishment about three times a month--filled him with contempt for her powers. 'She doesn't hurt,' he explained to Maisie, who urged him to rebellion, 'and she is kinder to you after she has whacked me.' Dick shambled through the days unkempt in body and savage in soul, as the smaller boys of the school learned to know, for when the spirit moved him he would hit them, cunningly and with science. The same spirit made him more than once try to tease Maisie, but the girl refused to be made unhappy. 'We are both miserable as it is,' said she. 'What is the use of trying to make things worse? Let's find things to do, and forget things.'

The pistol was the outcome of that search. It could only be used on the muddiest foreshore of the beach, far away from the bathing-machines and pierheads, below the grassy slopes of Fort Keeling. The tide ran out nearly two miles on that coast, and the many-coloured mud-banks, touched by the sun, sent up a lamentable smell of dead weed. It was late in the afternoon when Dick and Maisie arrived on their ground, Amomma trotting patiently behind them.

'Mf!' said Maisie, sniffing the air. 'I wonder what makes the sea so smelly? I don't like it!'

'You never like anything that isn't made just for you,' said Dick bluntly. 'Give me the cartridges, and I'll try first shot. How far does one of these little revolvers carry?'

'Oh, half a mile,' said Maisie, promptly. 'At least it makes an awful noise. Be careful with the cartridges; I don't like those jagged stick-up things on the rim. Dick, do be careful.'

'All right. I know how to load. I'll fire at the breakwater out there.'

He fired, and Amomma ran away bleating. The bullet threw up a spurt of mud to the right of the wood-wreathed piles.

'Throws high and to the right. You try, Maisie. Mind, it's loaded all round.'

Maisie took the pistol and stepped delicately to the verge of the mud, her hand firmly closed on the butt, her mouth and left eye screwed up.

Dick sat down on a tuft of bank and laughed. Amomma returned very cautiously. He was accustomed to strange experiences in his afternoon walks, and, finding the cartridge-box unguarded, made investigations with his nose. Maisie fired, but could not see where the bullet went.

'I think it hit the post,' she said, shading her eyes and looking out across the sailless sea.

'I know it has gone out to the Marazion Bell-buoy,' said Dick, with a chuckle. 'Fire low and to the left; then perhaps you'll get it. Oh, look at Amomma!--he's eating the cartridges!'

Maisie turned, the revolver in her hand, just in time to see Amomma scampering away from the pebbles Dick threw after him. Nothing is sacred to a billy-goat. Being well fed and the adored of his mistress, Amomma had naturally swallowed two loaded pin-fire cartridges. Maisie hurried up to assure herself that Dick had not miscounted the tale.

'Yes, he's eaten two.'

'Horrid little beast! Then they'll joggle about inside him and blow up, and serve him right. . . . Oh, Dick! have I killed you?'

Revolvers are tricky things for young hands to deal with. Maisie could not explain how it had happened, but a veil of reeking smoke separated her from Dick, and she was quite certain that the pistol had gone off in his face. Then she heard him sputter, and dropped on her knees beside him, crying, 'Dick, you aren't hurt, are you? I didn't mean it.'

'Of course you didn't, said Dick, coming out of the smoke and wiping his cheek. 'But you nearly blinded me. That powder stuff stings awfully.' A neat little splash of gray led on a stone showed where the bullet had gone. Maisie began to whimper.

'Don't,' said Dick, jumping to his feet and shaking himself. 'I'm not a bit hurt.'

'No, but I might have killed you,' protested Maisie, the corners of her mouth drooping. 'What should I have done then?'

'Gone home and told Mrs. Jennett.' Dick grinned at the thought; then, softening, 'Please don't worry about it. Besides, we are wasting time.

We've got to get back to tea. I'll take the revolver for a bit.'

Maisie would have wept on the least encouragement, but Dick's indifference, albeit his hand was shaking as he picked up the pistol, restrained her. She lay panting on the beach while Dick methodically bombarded the breakwater. 'Got it at last!' he exclaimed, as a lock of weed flew from the wood.

'Let me try,' said Maisie, imperiously. 'I'm all right now.'

They fired in turns till the rickety little revolver nearly shook itself to pieces, and Amomma the outcast--because he might blow up at any moment--browsed in the background and wondered why stones were thrown at him. Then they found a balk of timber floating in a pool which was commanded by the seaward slope of Fort Keeling, and they sat down together before this new target.

'Next holidays,' said Dick, as the now thoroughly fouled revolver kicked wildly in his hand, 'we'll get another pistol,--central fire,--that will carry farther.'

'There won't b any next holidays for me,' said Maisie. 'I'm going away.'

'Where to?'

'I don't know. My lawyers have written to Mrs. Jennett, and I've got to be educated somewhere,--in France, perhaps,--I don't know where; but I shall be glad to go away.'

'I shan't like it a bit. I suppose I shall be left. Look here, Maisie, is it really true you're going? Then these holidays will be the last I shall see anything of you; and I go back to school next week. I wish----'

The young blood turned his cheeks scarlet. Maisie was picking grass-tufts and throwing them down the slope at a yellow sea-poppy nodding all by itself to the illimitable levels of the mud-flats and the milk-white sea beyond.

'I wish,' she said, after a pause, 'that I could see you again sometime.

You wish that, too?'

'Yes, but it would have been better if--if--you had--shot straight over there--down by the breakwater.'

Maisie looked with large eyes for a moment. And this was the boy who only ten days before had decorated Amomma's horns with cut-paper ham-frills and turned him out, a bearded derision, among the public ways! Then she dropped her eyes: this was not the boy.

'Don't be stupid,' she said reprovingly, and with swift instinct attacked the side-issue. 'How selfish you are! Just think what I should have felt if that horrid thing had killed you! I'm quite miserable enough already.'

'Why? Because you're going away from Mrs. Jennett?'

'No.'

'From me, then?'

No answer for a long time. Dick dared not look at her. He felt, though he did not know, all that the past four years had been to him, and this the more acutely since he had no knowledge to put his feelings in words.

'I don't know,' she said. 'I suppose it is.'

'Maisie, you must know. I'm not supposing.'

'Let's go home,' said Maisie, weakly.

But Dick was not minded to retreat.

'I can't say things,' he pleaded, 'and I'm awfully sorry for teasing you about Amomma the other day. It's all different now, Maisie, can't you see? And you might have told me that you were going, instead of leaving me to find out.'

'You didn't. I did tell. Oh, Dick, what's the use of worrying?'

'There isn't any; but we've been together years and years, and I didn't know how much I cared.'

'Yes, but if you promise before you go. Only say--will you?' A second 'darling' came to his lips more easily than the first. There were few endearments in Dick's home or school life; he had to find them by instinct. Dick caught the little hand blackened with the escaped gas of the revolver.

'I promise,' she said solemnly; 'but if I care there is no need for promising.'

'And do you care?' For the first time in the past few minutes their eyes met and spoke for them who had no skill in speech. . . .

'Oh, Dick, don't! Please don't! It was all right when we said good-morning; but now it's all different!' Amomma looked on from afar.

He had seen his property quarrel frequently, but he had never seen kisses exchanged before. The yellow sea-poppy was wiser, and nodded its head approvingly. Considered as a kiss, that was a failure, but since it was the first, other than those demanded by duty, in all the world that either had ever given or taken, it opened to them new worlds, and every one of them glorious, so that they were lifted above the consideration of any worlds at all, especially those in which tea is necessary, and sat still, holding each other's hands and saying not a word.

'You can't forget now,' said Dick, at last. There was that on his cheek that stung more than gunpowder.

'I shouldn't have forgotten anyhow,' said Maisie, and they looked at each other and saw that each was changed from the companion of an hour ago to a wonder and a mystery they could not understand. The sun began to set, and a night-wind thrashed along the bents of the foreshore.

'We shall be awfully late for tea,' said Maisie. 'Let's go home.'

'Let's use the rest of the cartridges first,' said Dick; and he helped Maisie down the slope of the fort to the sea,--a descent that she was quite capable of covering at full speed. Equally gravely Maisie took the grimy hand. Dick bent forward clumsily; Maisie drew the hand away, and Dick blushed.

'It's very pretty,' he said.

'Pooh!' said Maisie, with a little laugh of gratified vanity. She stood close to Dick as he loaded the revolver for the last time and fired over the sea with a vague notion at the back of his head that he was protecting Maisie from all the evils in the world. A puddle far across the mud caught the last rays of the sun and turned into a wrathful red disc. The light held Dick's attention for a moment, and as he raised his revolver there fell upon him a renewed sense of the miraculous, in that he was standing by Maisie who had promised to care for him for an indefinite length of time till such date as---- A gust of the growing wind drove the girl's long black hair across his face as she stood with her hand on his shoulder calling Amomma 'a little beast,' and for a moment he was in the dark,--a darkness that stung. The bullet went singing out to the empty sea.

'Spoilt my aim,' said he, shaking his head. 'There aren't any more cartridges; we shall have to run home.' But they did not run. They walked very slowly, arm in arm. And it was a matter of indifference to them whether the neglected Amomma with two pin-fire cartridges in his inside blew up or trotted beside them; for they had come into a golden heritage and were disposing of it with all the wisdom of all their years.

'And I shall be----' quoth Dick, valiantly. Then he checked himself: 'I don't know what I shall be. I don't seem to be able to pass any exams, but I can make awful caricatures of the masters. Ho! Ho!'

'Be an artist, then,' said Maisie. 'You're always laughing at my trying to draw; and it will do you good.'

'I'll never laugh at anything you do,' he answered. 'I'll be an artist, and I'll do things.'

'Artists always want money, don't they?'

'I've got a hundred and twenty pounds a year of my own. My guardians tell me I'm to have it when I come of age. That will be enough to begin with.'

'Ah, I'm rich,' said Maisie. 'I've got three hundred a year all my own when I'm twenty-one. That's why Mrs. Jennett is kinder to me than she is to you. I wish, though, that I had somebody that belonged to me,--just a father or a mother.'

'You belong to me,' said Dick, 'for ever and ever.'

'Yes, we belong--for ever. It's very nice.' She squeezed his arm. The kindly darkness hid them both, and, emboldened because he could only just see the profile of Maisie's cheek with the long lashes veiling the gray eyes, Dick at the front door delivered himself of the words he had been boggling over for the last two hours.

'And I--love you, Maisie,' he said, in a whisper that seemed to him to ring across the world,--the world that he would to-morrow or the next day set out to conquer.

There was a scene, not, for the sake of discipline, to be reported, when Mrs. Jennett would have fallen upon him, first for disgraceful unpunctuality, and secondly for nearly killing himself with a forbidden weapon.

'I was playing with it, and it went off by itself,' said Dick, when the powder-pocked cheek could no longer be hidden, 'but if you think you're going to lick me you're wrong. You are never going to touch me again.

Sit down and give me my tea. You can't cheat us out of that, anyhow.'

Mrs. Jennett gasped and became livid. Maisie said nothing, but encouraged Dick with her eyes, and he behaved abominably all that evening. Mrs. Jennett prophesied an immediate judgment of Providence and a descent into Tophet later, but Dick walked in Paradise and would not hear. Only when he was going to bed Mrs. Jennett recovered and asserted herself. He had bidden Maisie good-night with down-dropped eyes and from a distance.

'If you aren't a gentleman you might try to behave like one,' said Mrs.

Jennett, spitefully. 'You've been quarrelling with Maisie again.'

This meant that the usual good-night kiss had been omitted. Maisie, white to the lips, thrust her cheek forward with a fine air of indifference, and was duly pecked by Dick, who tramped out of the room red as fire. That night he dreamed a wild dream. He had won all the world and brought it to Maisie in a cartridge-box, but she turned it over with her foot, and, instead of saying 'Thank you,' cried-- 'Where is the grass collar you promised for Amomma? Oh, how selfish you are!'?

CHAPTER II

Then we brought the lances down, then the bugles blew,When we went to Kandahar, ridin' two an' two,Ridin', ridin', ridin', two an' two,Ta-ra-ra-ra-ra-ra-ra,All the way to Kandahar, ridin' two an' two.

--Barrack-Room Ballad.

'I'M NOT angry with the British public, but I wish we had a fewthousand of them scattered among these rooks. They wouldn't be in sucha hurry to get at their morning papers then. Can't you imagine theregulation householder--Lover of Justice, Constant Reader,Paterfamilias, and all that lot--frizzling on hot gravel?'

'With a blue veil over his head, and his clothes in strips. Has any manhere a needle? I've got a piece of sugar-sack.'

'I'll lend you a packing-needle for six square inches of it then. Both myknees are worn through.'

'Why not six square acres, while you're about it? But lend me the needle,and I'll see what I can do with the selvage. I don't think there's enough toprotect my royal body from the cold blast as it is. What are you doingwith that everlasting sketch-book of yours, Dick?'

'Study of our Special Correspondent repairing his wardrobe,' said Dick,gravely, as the other man kicked off a pair of sorely wornriding-breeches and began to fit a square of coarse canvas over the mostobvious open space. He grunted disconsolately as the vastness of the voiddeveloped itself.

A fez-crowned head bobbed up in the stern-sheets, divided itself intoexact halves with one flashing grin, and bobbed down again. The man ofthe tattered breeches, clad only in a Norfolk jacket and a gray flannelshirt, went on with his clumsy sewing, while Dick chuckled over thesketch.

Some twenty whale-boats were nuzzling a sand-bank which was dottedwith English soldiery of half a dozen corps, bathing or washing theirclothes. A heap of boat-rollers, commissariat-boxes, sugar-bags, andflour- and small-arm-ammunition-cases showed where one of thewhale-boats had been compelled to unload hastily; and a regimentalcarpenter was swearing aloud as he tried, on a wholly insufficientallowance of white lead, to plaster up the sun-parched gaping seams ofthe boat herself.

'First the bloomin' rudder snaps,' said he to the world in general; 'thenthe mast goes; an' then, s' 'help me, when she can't do nothin' else, sheopens 'erself out like a cock-eyes Chinese lotus.'

'Exactly the case with my breeches, whoever you are,' said the tailor,without looking up. 'Dick, I wonder when I shall see a decent shop again.'

There was no answer, save the incessant angry murmur of the Nile as itraced round a basalt-walled bend and foamed across a rock-ridge half amile upstream. It was as though the brown weight of the river woulddrive the white men back to their own country. The indescribable scentof Nile mud in the air told that the stream was falling and the next fewmiles would be no light thing for the whale-boats to overpass. The desertran down almost to the banks, where, among gray, red, and blackhillocks, a camel-corps was encamped. No man dared even for a day losetouch of the slow-moving boats; there had been no fighting for weekspast, and throughout all that time the Nile had never spared them. Rapidhad followed rapid, rock rock, and island-group island-group, till therank and file had long since lost all count of direction and very nearly oftime. They were moving somewhere, they did not know why, to dosomething, they did not know what. Before them lay the Nile, and at theother end of it was one Gordon, fighting for the dear life, in a town calledKhartoum. There were columns of British troops in the desert, or in oneof the many deserts; there were yet more columns waiting to embark onthe river; there were fresh drafts waiting at Assioot and Assuan; therewere lies and rumours running over the face of the hopeless land fromSuakin to the Sixth Cataract, and men supposed generally that theremust be some one in authority to direct the general scheme of the manymovements. The duty of that particular river-column was to keep thewhale-boats afloat in the water, to avoid trampling on the villagers' cropswhen the gangs 'tracked' the boats with lines thrown from midstream, toget as much sleep and food as was possible, and, above all, to press onwithout delay in the teeth of the churning Nile.

With the soldiers sweated and toiled the correspondents of thenewspapers, and they were almost as ignorant as their companions. Butit was above all things necessary that England at breakfast should beamused and thrilled and interested, whether Gordon lived or died, orhalf the British army went to pieces in the sands. The Soudan campaignwas a picturesque one, and lent itself to vivid word-painting. Now andagain a 'Special' managed to get slain,--which was not altogether adisadvantage to the paper that employed him,--and more often thehand-to-hand nature of the fighting allowed of miraculous escapes whichwere worth telegraphing home at eighteenpence the word. There weremany correspondents with many corps and columns,--from the veteranswho had followed on the heels of the cavalry that occupied Cairo in '82,what time Arabi Pasha called himself king, who had seen the firstmiserable work round Suakin when the sentries were cut up nightly andthe scrub swarmed with spears, to youngsters jerked into the business atthe end of a telegraph-wire to take the places of their betters killed orinvalided.

Among the seniors--those who knew every shift and change in theperplexing postal arrangements, the value of the seediest, weediestEgyptian garron offered for sale in Cairo or Alexandria, who could talk atelegraph-clerk into amiability and soothe the ruffled vanity of a newlyappointed staff-officer when press regulations became burdensome--wasthe man in the flannel shirt, the black-browed Torpenhow. Herepresented the Central Southern Syndicate in the campaign, as he hadrepresented it in the Egyptian war, and elsewhere. The syndicate did notconcern itself greatly with criticisms of attack and the like. It suppliedthe masses, and all it demanded was picturesqueness and abundance ofdetail; for there is more joy in England over a soldier whoinsubordinately steps out of square to rescue a comrade than over twentygenerals slaving even to baldness at the gross details of transport andcommissariat.

He had met at Suakin a young man, sitting on the edge of a recentlyabandoned redoubt about the size of a hat-box, sketching a clump ofshell-torn bodies on the gravel plain.

'What are you for?' said Torpenhow. The greeting of the correspondentis that of the commercial traveller on the road.

'My own hand,' said the young man, without looking up. 'Have you anytobacco?'

Torpenhow waited till the sketch was finished, and when he had lookedat it said, 'What's your business here?'

'Nothing; there was a row, so I came. I'm supposed to be doing somethingdown at the painting-slips among the boats, or else I'm in charge of thecondenser on one of the water-ships. I've forgotten which.'

'You've cheek enough to build a redoubt with,' said Torpenhow, and tookstock of the new acquaintance. 'Do you always draw like that?'

The young man produced more sketches. 'Row on a Chinese pig-boat,'

said he, sententiously, showing them one after another.--'Chief matedirked by a comprador.--Junk ashore off Hakodate.--Somali muleteerbeing flogged.--Star-shelled bursting over camp at Berbera.--Slave-dhowbeing chased round Tajurrah Bah.--Soldier lying dead in the moonlightoutside Suakin.--throat cut by Fuzzies.'

'H'm!' said Torpenhow, 'can't say I care for Verestchagin-and-watermyself, but there's no accounting for tastes. Doing anything now, areyou?'

'No. I'm amusing myself here.'

Torpenhow looked at the sketches again, and nodded. 'Yes, you're rightto take your first chance when you can get it.'

He rode away swiftly through the Gate of the Two War-Ships, rattledacross the causeway into the town, and wired to his syndicate, 'Got manhere, picture-work. Good and cheap. Shall I arrange? Will do letterpresswith sketches.'

The man on the redoubt sat swinging his legs and murmuring, 'I knewthe chance would come, sooner or later. By Gad, they'll have to sweat forit if I come through this business alive!'

In the evening Torpenhow was able to announce to his friend that theCentral Southern Agency was willing to take him on trial, payingexpenses for three months. 'And, by the way, what's your name?' saidTorpenhow.

'Heldar. Do they give me a free hand?'

'They've taken you on chance. You must justify the choice. You'd betterstick to me. I'm going up-country with a column, and I'll do what I canfor you. Give me some of your sketches taken here, and I'll send 'emalong.' To himself he said, 'That's the best bargain the Central southernhas ever made; and they got me cheaply enough.'

So it came to pass that, after some purchase of horse-flesh andarrangements financial and political, Dick was made free of the New andHonourable Fraternity of war correspondents, who all possess theinalienable right of doing as much work as they can and getting as muchfor it as Providence and their owners shall please. To these things areadded in time, if the brother be worthy, the power of glib speech thatneither man nor woman can resist when a meal or a bed is in question,the eye of a horse-cope, the skill of a cook, the constitution of a bullock,the digestion of an ostrich, and an infinite adaptability to allcircumstances. But many die before they attain to this degree, and thepast-masters in the craft appear for the most part in dress-clothes whenthey are in England, and thus their glory is hidden from the multitude.

Dick followed Torpenhow wherever the latter's fancy chose to lead him,and between the two they managed to accomplish some work that almostsatisfied themselves. It was not an easy life in any way, and under itsinfluence the two were drawn ver closely together, for they ate from thesame dish, they shared the same water-bottle, and, most binding tie of all,their mails went off together. It was Dick who managed to makegloriously drunk a telegraph-clerk in a palm hut far beyond the SecondCataract, and, while the man lay in bliss on the floor, possessed himself ofsome laboriously acquired exclusive information, forwarded by aconfiding correspondent of an opposition syndicate, made a carefulduplicate of the matter, and brought the result to Torpenhow, who saidthat all was fair in love or war correspondence, and built an excellentdescriptive article from his rival's riotous waste of words. It wasTorpenhow who--but the tale of their adventures, together and apart,from Philae to the waste wilderness of Herawi and Muella, would fillmany books. They had been penned into a square side by side, in deadlyfear of being shot by over-excited soldiers; they had fought withbaggage-camels in the chill dawn; they had jogged along in silence underblinding sun on indefatigable little Egyptian horses; and they hadfloundered on the shallows of the Nile when the whale-boat in which theyhad found a berth chose to hit a hidden rock and rip out half herbottom-planks.

Now they were sitting on the sand-bank, and the whale-boats werebringing up the remainder of the column.

'Yes,' said Torpenhow, as he put the last rude stitches into hisover-long-neglected gear, 'it has been a beautiful business.'

'The patch or the campaign?' said Dick. 'Don't think much of either,myself.'

'You want the Euryalus brought up above the Third Cataract, don't you?and eighty-one-ton guns at Jakdul? Now, I'm quite satisfied with mybreeches.' He turned round gravely to exhibit himself, after the mannerof a clown.

'It's very pretty. Specially the lettering on the sack. G.B.T. GovernmentBullock Train. That's a sack from India.'

What the mischief are the camel-corps doing yonder?' Torpenhowshaded his eyes and looked across the scrub-strewn gravel.

A bugle blew furiously, and the men on the bank hurried to their armsand accoutrements.

'"Pisan soldiery surprised while bathing,"' remarked Dick, calmly.

'D'you remember the picture? It's by Michael Angelo; all beginners copyit. That scrub's alive with enemy.'

The camel-corps on the bank yelled to the infantry to come to them, anda hoarse shouting down the river showed that the remainder of thecolumn had wind of the trouble and was hastening to take share in it. Asswiftly as a reach of still water is crisped by the wind, the rock-strewnridges and scrub-topped hills were troubled and alive with armed men.

Mercifully, it occurred to these to stand far off for a time, to shout andgesticulate joyously. One man even delivered himself of a long story. Thecamel-corps did not fire. They were only too glad of a littlebreathing-space, until some sort of square could be formed. The men onthe sand-bank ran to their side; and the whale-boats, as they toiled upwithin shouting distance, were thrust into the nearest bank and emptiedof all save the sick and a few men to guard them. The Arab orator ceasedhis outcries, and his friends howled.

'They look like the Mahdi's men,' said Torpenhow, elbowing himself intothe crush of the square; 'but what thousands of 'em there are! The tribeshereabout aren't against us, I know.'

'Then the Mahdi's taken another town,' said Dick, 'and set all theseyelping devils free to show us up. Lend us your glass.'

'Our scouts should have told us of this. We've been trapped,' said asubaltern. 'Aren't the camel guns ever going to begin? Hurry up, youmen!'

There was no need of any order. The men flung themselves pantingagainst the sides of the square, for they had good reason to know thatwhoso was left outside when the fighting began would very probably diein an extremely unpleasant fashion. The little hundred-and-fifty-poundcamel-guns posted at one corner of the square opened the ball as thesquare moved forward by its right to get possession of a knoll of risingground. All had fought in this manner many times before, and there wasno novelty in the entertainment; always the same hot and stiflingformation, the smell of dust and leather, the same boltlike rush of theenemy, the same pressure on the weakest side, the few minutes ofhand-to-hand scuffle, and then the silence of the desert, broken only bythe yells of those whom their handful of cavalry attempted to purse. Theyhad become careless. The camel-guns spoke at intervals, and the squareslouched forward amid the protesting of the camels. Then came theattack of three thousand men who had not learned from books that it isimpossible for troops in close order to attack against breech-loading fire.

A few dropping shots heralded their approach, and a few horsemen led,but the bulk of the force was naked humanity, mad with rage, and armedwith the spear and the sword. The instinct of the desert, where there isalways much war, told them that the right flank of the square was theweakest, for they swung clear of the front. The camel-guns shelled themas they passed and opened for an instant lanes through their midst, mostlike those quick-closing vistas in a Kentish hop-garden seen when thetrain races by at full speed; and the infantry fire, held till the opportunemoment, dropped them in close-packing hundreds. No civilised troops inthe world could have endured the hell through which they came, theliving leaping high to avoid the dying who clutched at their heels, thewounded cursing and staggering forward, till they fell--a torrent black asthe sliding water above a mill-dam--full on the right flank of the square.

Then the line of the dusty troops and the faint blue desert sky overheadwent out in rolling smoke, and the little stones on the heated ground antthe tinder-dry clumps of scrub became matters of surpassing interest, formen measured their agonised retreat and recovery by these things,counting mechanically and hewing their way back to chosen pebble andbranch. There was no semblance of any concerted fighting. For aught themen knew, the enemy might be attempting all four sides of the square atonce. Their business was to destroy what lay in front of them, to bayonetin the back those who passed over them, and, dying, to drag down theslayer till he could be knocked on the head by some avenging gun-butt.

Dick waited with Torpenhow and a young doctor till the stress grewunendurable. It was hopeless to attend to the wounded till the attack wasrepulsed, so the three moved forward gingerly towards the weakest sideof the square. There was a rush from without, the short hough-hough ofthe stabbing spears, and a man on a horse, followed by thirty or fortyothers, dashed through, yelling and hacking. The right flank of thesquare sucked in after them, and the other sides sent help. The wounded,who knew that they had but a few hours more to live, caught at theenemy's feet and brought them down, or, staggering into a discardedrifle, fired blindly into the scuffle that raged in the centre of the square.

Dick was conscious that somebody had cut him violently across hishelmet, that he had fired his revolver into a black, foam-flecked facewhich forthwith ceased to bear any resemblance to a face, and thatTorpenhow had gone down under an Arab whom he had tried to 'collarlow,' and was turning over and over with his captive, feeling for theman's eyes. The doctor jabbed at a venture with a bayonet, and ahelmetless soldier fired over Dick's shoulder: the flying grains of powderstung his cheek. It was to Torpenhow that Dick turned by instinct. Therepresentative of the Central Southern Syndicate had shaken himselfclear of his enemy, and rose, wiping his thumb on his trousers. The Arab,both hands to his forehead, screamed aloud, then snatched up his spearand rushed at Torpenhow, who was panting under shelter of Dick'srevolver. Dick fired twice, and the man dropped limply. His upturnedface lacked one eye. The musketry-fire redoubled, but cheers mingledwith it. The rush had failed and the enemy were flying. If the heart of thesquare were shambles, the ground beyond was a butcher's shop. Dickthrust his way forward between the maddened men. The remnant of theenemy were retiring, as the few--the very few--English cavalry rodedown the laggards.

Beyond the lines of the dead, a broad blood-stained Arab spear cast asidein the retreat lay across a stump of scrub, and beyond this again theillimitable dark levels of the desert. The sun caught the steel and turnedit into a red disc. Some one behind him was saying, 'Ah, get away, youbrute!' Dick raised his revolver and pointed towards the desert. His eyewas held by the red spash in the distance, and the clamour about himseemed to die down to a very far-away whisper, like the whisper of alevel sea. There was the revolver and the red light. . . . and the voice ofsome one scaring something away, exactly as had fallen somewherebefore,--a darkness that stung. He fired at random, and the bullet wentout across the desert as he muttered, 'Spoilt my aim. There aren't anymore cartridges. We shall have to run home.' He put his hand to his headand brought it away covered with blood.

'Old man, you're cut rather badly,' said Torpenhow. 'I owe yousomething for this business. Thanks. Stand up! I say, you can't be illhere.'

Throughout the night, when the troops were encamped by thewhale-boats, a black figure danced in the strong moonlight on thesand-bar and shouted that Khartoum the accursed one was dead,--wasdead,--was dead,--that two steamers were rock-staked on the Nile outsidethe city, and that of all their crews there remained not one; andKhartoum was dead,--was dead,--was dead!

But Torpenhow took no heed. He was watching Dick, who called aloud tothe restless Nile for Maisie,--and again Maisie!?

'Behold a phenomenon,' said Torpenhow, rearranging the blanket. 'Hereis a man, presumably human, who mentions the name of one womanonly. And I've seen a good deal of delirium, too.--Dick, here's some fizzydrink.'

'Thank you, Maisie,' said Dick.

CHAPTER III

So he thinks he shall take to the sea againFor one more cruise with his buccaneers,To singe the beard of the King of Spain,And capture another Dean of JaenAnd sell him in Algiers.--A Dutch Picture. Longfellow

THE SOUDAN campaign and Dick's broken head had been some monthsended and mended, and the Central Southern Syndicate had paid Dick acertain sum on account for work done, which work they were careful toassure him was not altogether up to their standard. Dick heaved theletter into the Nile at Cairo, cashed the draft in the same town, and badea warm farewell to Torpenhow at the station.

'I am going to lie up for a while and rest,' said Torpenhow. 'I don't knowwhere I shall live in London, but if God brings us to meet, we shall meet.

Are you starying here on the off-chance of another row? There will benone till the Southern Soudan is reoccupied by our troops. Mark that.

Dick loitered in Cairo, Alexandria, Ismailia, and Port Said,--especiallyPort Said. There is iniquity in many parts of the world, and vice in all,but the concentrated essence of all the iniquities and all the vices in allthe continents finds itself at Port Said. And through the heart of thatsand-bordered hell, where the mirage flickers day long above the BitterLake, move, if you will only wait, most of the men and women you haveknown in this life. Dick established himself in quarters more riotous thanrespectable. He spent his evenings on the quay, and boarded many ships,and saw very many friends,--gracious Englishwomen with whom he hadtalked not too wisely in the veranda of Shepherd's Hotel, hurrying warcorrespondents, skippers of the contract troop-ships employed in thecampaign, army officers by the score, and others of less reputable trades.

He had choice of all the races of the East and West for studies, and theadvantage of seeing his subjects under the influence of strong excitement,at the gaming-tables, saloons, dancing-hells, and elsewhere. Forrecreation there was the straight vista of the Canal, the blazing sands,the procession of shipping, and the white hospitals where the Englishsoldiers lay. He strove to set down in black and white and colour all thatProvidence sent him, and when that supply was ended sought about forfresh material. It was a fascinating employment, but it ran away with hismoney, and he had drawn in advance the hundred and twenty pounds towhich he was entitled yearly. 'Now I shall have to work and starve!'

thought he, and was addressing himself to this new fate when amysterious telegram arrived from Torpenhow in England, which said,'Come back, quick; you have caught on. Come.'

A large smile overspread his face. 'So soon! that's a good hearing,' saidhe to himself. 'There will be an orgy to-night. I'll stand or fall by myluck. Faith, it's time it came!' He deposited half of his funds in the handsof his well-known friends Monsieur and Madame Binat, and orderedhimself a Zanzibar dance of the finest. Monsieur Binat was shaking withdrink, but Madame smiles sympathetically--'Monsieur needs a chair, of course, and of course Monsieur will sketch;Monsieur amuses himself strangely.'

Binat raised a blue-white face from a cot in the inner room. 'Iunderstand,' he quavered. 'We all know Monsieur. Monsieur is an artist,as I have been.' Dick nodded. 'In the end,' said Binat, with gravity,'Monsieur will descend alive into hell, as I have descended.' And helaughed.

'You must come to the dance, too,' said Dick; 'I shall want you.'

'For my face? I knew it would be so. For my face? My God! and for mydegradation so tremendous! I will not. Take him away. He is a devil. Orat least do thou, Celeste, demand of him more.' The excellent Binat beganto kick and scream.

'All things are for sale in Port Said,' said Madame. 'If my husband comesit will be so much more. Eh, 'how you call--'alf a sovereign.'

The money was paid, and the mad dance was held at night in a walledcourtyard at the back of Madame Binat's house. The lady herself, infaded mauve silk always about to slide from her yellow shoulders, playedthe piano, and to the tin-pot music of a Western waltz the nakedZanzibari girls danced furiously by the light of kerosene lamps. Binat satupon a chair and stared with eyes that saw nothing, till the whirl of thedance and the clang of the rattling piano stole into the drink that took theplace of blood in his veins, and his face glistened. Dick took him by thechin brutally and turned that face to the light. Madame Binat lookedover her shoulder and smiled with many teeth. Dick leaned against thewall and sketched for an hour, till the kerosene lamps began to smell, andthe girls threw themselves panting on the hard-beaten ground. Then heshut his book with a snap and moved away, Binat plucking feebly at hiselbow. 'Show me,' he whimpered. 'I too was once an artist, even I!' Dickshowed him the rough sketch. 'Am I that?' he screamed. 'Will you takethat away with you and show all the world that it is I,--Binat?' Hemoaned and wept.

'Monsieur has paid for all,' said Madame. 'To the pleasure of seeingMonsieur again.'

The courtyard gate shut, and Dick hurried up the sandy street to thenearest gambling-hell, where he was well known. 'If the luck holds, it'san omen; if I lose, I must stay here.' He placed his money picturesquelyabout the board, hardly daring to look at what he did. The luck held.

Three turns of the wheel left him richer by twenty pounds, and he wentdown to the shipping to make friends with the captain of a decayedcargo-steamer, who landed him in London with fewer pounds in hispocket than he cared to think about.

A thin gray fog hung over the city, and the streets were very cold; forsummer was in England.

'It's a cheerful wilderness, and it hasn't the knack of altering much,' Dickthought, as he tramped from the Docks westward. 'Now, what must Ido?'

The packed houses gave no answer. Dick looked down the long lightlessstreets and at the appalling rush of traffic. 'Oh, you rabbit-hutches!' saidhe, addressing a row of highly respectable semi-detached residences. 'Doyou know what you've got to do later on? You have to supply me withmen-servants and maid-servants,'--here he smacked his lips,--'and thepeculiar treasure of kings. Meantime I'll clothes and boots, and presentlyI will return and trample on you.' He stepped forward energetically; hesaw that one of his shoes was burst at the side. As he stooped to makeinvestigations, a man jostled him into the gutter. 'All right,' he said.

'That's another nick in the score. I'll jostle you later on.'

Good clothes and boots are not cheap, and Dick left his last shop with thecertainty that he would be respectably arrayed for a time, but with onlyfifty shillings in his pocket. He returned to streets by the Docks, andlodged himself in one room, where the sheets on the bed were almostaudibly marked in case of theft, and where nobody seemed to go to bed atall. When his clothes arrived he sought the Central Southern Syndicatefor Torpenhow's address, and got it, with the intimation that there wasstill some money waiting for him.

'How much?' said Dick, as one who habitually dealt in millions.

'Between thirty and forty pounds. If it would be any convenience to you,of course we could let you have it at once; but we usually settle accountsmonthly.'

'If I show that I want anything now, I'm lost,' he said to himself. 'All Ineed I'll take later on.' Then, aloud, 'It's hardly worth while; and I'mgoing to the country for a month, too. Wait till I come back, and I'll seeabout it.'

'But we trust, Mr. Heldar, that you do not intend to sever yourconnection with us?'

Dick's business in life was the study of faces, and he watched the speakerkeenly. 'That man means something,' he said. 'I'll do no business till I'veseen Torpenhow. There's a big deal coming.' So he departed, making nopromises, to his one little room by the Docks. And that day was theseventh of the month, and that month, he reckoned with awfuldistinctness, had thirty-one days in it!?

It is not easy for a man of catholic tastes and healthy appetites to exist fortwenty-four days on fifty shillings. Nor is it cheering to begin theexperiment alone in all the loneliness of London. Dick paid seven shillingsa week for his lodging, which left him rather less than a shilling a day forfood and drink. Naturally, his first purchase was of the materials of hiscraft; he had been without them too long. Half a day's investigations andcomparison brought him to the conclusion that sausages and mashedpotatoes, twopence a plate, were the best food. Now, sausages once ortwice a week for breakfast are not unpleasant. As lunch, even, withmashed potatoes, they become monotonous. At dinner they areimpertinent. At the end of three days Dick loathed sausages, and, going,forth, pawned his watch to revel on sheep's head, which is not as cheapas it looks, owing to the bones and the gravy. Then he returned tosausages and mashed potatoes. Then he confined himself entirely tomashed potatoes for a day, and was unhappy because of pain in hisinside. Then he pawned his waistcoat and his tie, and thought regretfullyof money thrown away in times past. There are few things more edifyingunto Art than the actual belly-pinch of hunger, and Dick in his few walksabroad,--he did not care for exercise; it raised desires that could not besatisfied--found himself dividing mankind into two classes,--those wholooked as if they might give him something to eat, and those who lookedotherwise. 'I never knew what I had to learn about the human facebefore,' he thought; and, as a reward for his humility, Providence causeda cab-driver at a sausage-shop where Dick fed that night to leave halfeaten a great chunk of bread. Dick took it,--would have fought all theworld for its possession,--and it cheered him.

The month dragged through at last, and, nearly prancing withimpatience, he went to draw his money. Then he hastened toTorpenhow's address and smelt the smell of cooking meats all along thecorridors of the chambers. Torpenhow was on the top floor, and Dickburst into his room, to be received with a hug which nearly cracked hisribs, as Torpenhow dragged him tot he light and spoke of twentydifferent things in the same breath.

'But you're looking tucked up,' he concluded.

'Got anything to eat?' said Dick, his eye roaming round the room.

'I shall be having breakfast in a minute. What do you say to sausages?'

'No, anything but sausages! Torp, I've been starving on that accursedhorse-flesh for thirty days and thirty nights.'

'Now, what lunacy has been your latest?'

Dick spoke of the last few weeks with unbridled speech. Then he openedhis coat; there was no waistcoat below. 'I ran it fine, awfully fine, butI've just scraped through.'

'You haven't much sense, but you've got a backbone, anyhow. Eat, andtalk afterwards.' Dick fell upon eggs and bacon and gorged till he couldgorge no more. Torpenhow handed him a filled pipe, and he smoked asmen smoke who for three weeks have been deprived of good tobacco.

'Ouf!' said he. 'That's heavenly! Well?'

'Why in the world didn't you come to me?'

'Couldn't; I owe you too much already, old man. Besides I had a sort ofsuperstition that this temporary starvation--that's what it was, and ithurt--would bring me luck later. It's over and done with now, and noneof the syndicate know how hard up I was. Fire away. What's the exactstate of affairs as regards myself?'

'You had my wire? You've caught on here. People like your workimmensely. I don't know why, but they do. They say you have a freshtouch and a new way of drawing things. And, because they're chieflyhome-bred English, they say you have insight. You're wanted by half adozen papers; you're wanted to illustrate books.'

Dick grunted scornfully.

'You're wanted to work up your smaller sketches and sell them to thedealers. They seem to think the money sunk in you is a good investment.

Good Lord! who can account for the fathomless folly of the public?'

'They're a remarkably sensible people.'

'They are subject to fits, if that's what you mean; and you happen to bethe object of the latest fit among those who are interested in what theycall Art. Just now you're a fashion, a phenomenon, or whatever youplease. I appeared to be the only person who knew anything about youhere, and I have been showing the most useful men a few of the sketchesyou gave me from time to time. Those coming after your work on theCentral Southern Syndicate appear to have done your business. You'rein luck.'

'Huh! call it luck! Do call it luck, when a man has been kicking about theworld like a dog, waiting for it to come! I'll luck 'em later on. I want aplace to work first.'

'Come here,' said Torpenhow, crossing the landing. 'This place is a bigbox room really, but it will do for you. There's your skylight, or yournorth light, or whatever window you call it, and plenty of room to thrashabout in, and a bedroom beyond. What more do you need?'

'Good enough,' said Dick, looking round the large room that took up athird of a top story in the rickety chambers overlooking the Thames. Apale yellow sun shone through the skylight and showed the much dirt ofthe place. Three steps led from the door to the landing, and three more toTorpenhow's room. The well of the staircase disappeared into darkness,pricked by tiny gas-jets, and there were sounds of men talking and doorsslamming seven flights below, in the warm gloom.

'Do they give you a free hand here?' said Dick, cautiously. He wasIshmael enough to know the value of liberty.

'Anything you like; latch-keys and license unlimited. We are permanenttenants for the most part here. 'Tisn't a place I would recommend for aYoung Men's Christian Association, but it will serve. I took these roomsfor you when I wired.'

'You're a great deal too kind, old man.'

'You didn't suppose you were going away from me, did you?' Torpenhowput his hand on Dick's shoulder, and the two walked up and down theroom, henceforward to be called the studio, in sweet and silentcommunion. They heard rapping at Torpenhow's door. 'That's someruffian come up for a drink,' said Torpenhow; and he raised his voicecheerily. There entered no one more ruffianly than a portly middle-agedgentleman in a satin-faced frockcoat. His lips were parted and pale, andthere were deep pouches under the eyes.

'Weak heart,' said Dick to himself, and, as he shook hands, 'very weakheart. His pulse is shaking his fingers.'

The man introduced himself as the head of the Central SouthernSyndicate and 'one of the most ardent admirers of your work, Mr.

Heldar. I assure you, in the name of the syndicate, that we are immenselyindebted to you; and I trust, Mr. Heldar, you won't forget that we werelargely instrumental in bringing you before the public.' He pantedbecause of the seven flights of stairs.

'I shan't forget,' said Dick, every instinct of defence roused in him.

'You've paid me so well that I couldn't, you know. By the way, when Iam settled in this place I should like to send and get my sketches. Theremust be nearly a hundred and fifty of them with you.'

'That is er--is what I came to speak about. I fear we can't allow itexactly, Mr. Heldar. In the absence of any specified agreement, thesketches are our property, of course.'

'Do you mean to say that you are going to keep them?'

'Yes; and we hope to have your help, on your own terms, Mr. Heldar, toassist us in arranging a little exhibition, which, backed by our name andthe influence we naturally command among the press, should be ofmaterial service to you. Sketches such as yours----'

'Belong to me. You engaged me by wire, you paid me the lowest rates youdared. You can't mean to keep them! Good God alive, man, they're allI've got in the world!'

Torpenhow watched Dick's face and whistled.

Dick walked up and down, thinking. He saw the whole of his little stockin trade, the first weapon of his equipment, annexed at the outset of hiscampaign by an elderly gentleman whose name Dick had not caughtaright, who said that he represented a syndicate, which was a thing forwhich Dick had not the least reverence. The injustice of the proceedingsdid not much move him; he had seen the strong hand prevail too often inother places to be squeamish over the moral aspects of right and wrong.

But he ardently desired the blood of the gentleman in the frockcoat, andwhen he spoke again, and when he spoke again it was with a strainedsweetness that Torpenhow knew well for the beginning of strife.

'Forgive me, sir, but you have no--no younger man who can arrange thisbusiness with me?'

'I speak for the syndicate. I see no reason for a third party to----'

'You will in a minute. Be good enough to give back my sketches.'

The man stared blankly at Dick, and then at Torpenhow, who wasleaning against the wall. He was not used to ex-employees who orderedhim to be good enough to do things.

'Yes, it is rather a cold-blooded steal,' said Torpenhow, critically; 'butI'm afraid, I am very much afraid, you've struck the wrong man. Becareful, Dick; remember, this isn't the Soudan.'

'Considering what services the syndicate have done you in putting yourname before the world----'

This was not a fortunate remark; it reminded Dick of certain vagrantyears lived out in loneliness and strife and unsatisfied desires. Thememory did not contrast well with the prosperous gentleman whoproposed to enjoy the fruit of those years.

'I don't know quite what to do with you,' began Dick, meditatively. 'Ofcourse you're a thief, and you ought to be half killed, but in your caseyou'd probably die. I don't want you dead on this floor, and, besides, it'sunlucky just as one's moving in. Don't hit, sir; you'll only excite yourself.'

He put one hand on the man's forearm and ran the other down the plumpbody beneath the coat. 'My goodness!' said he to Torpenhow, 'and thisgray oaf dares to be a thief! I have seen an Esneh camel-driver have theblack hide taken off his body in strips for stealing half a pound of wetdates, and he was as tough as whipcord. This things' soft all over--like awoman.'

There are few things more poignantly humiliating than being handled bya man who does not intend to strike. The head of the syndicate began tobreathe heavily. Dick walked round him, pawing him, as a cat paws a softhearth-rug. Then he traced with his forefinger the leaden pouchesunderneath the eyes, and shook his head. 'You were going to steal mythings,--mine, mine, mine!--you, who don't know when you may die.

Write a note to your office,--you say you're the head of it,--and orderthem to give Torpenhow my sketches,--every one of them. Wait a minute:your hand's shaking. Now!' He thrust a pocket-book before him. The notewas written. Torpenhow took it and departed without a word, while Dickwalked round and round the spellbound captive, giving him such adviceas he conceived best for the welfare of his soul. When Torpenhowreturned with a gigantic portfolio, he heard Dick say, almost soothingly,'Now, I hope this will be a lesson to you; and if you worry me when Ihave settled down to work with any nonsense about actions for assault,believe me, I'll catch you and manhandle you, and you'll die. You haven'tvery long to live, anyhow. Go! Imshi, Vootsak,--get out!' The mandeparted, staggering and dazed. Dick drew a long breath: 'Phew! what alawless lot these people are! The first thing a poor orphan meets is gangrobbery, organised burglary! Think of the hideous blackness of thatman's mind! Are my sketches all right, Torp?'

'Yes; one hundred and forty-seven of them. Well, I must say, Dick, you'vebegun well.'

'He was interfering with me. It only meant a few pounds to him, but itwas everything to me. I don't think he'll bring an action. I gave him somemedical advice gratis about the state of his body. It was cheap at the littleflurry it cost him. Now, let's look at my things.'

Two minutes later Dick had thrown himself down on the floor and wasdeep in the portfolio, chuckling lovingly as he turned the drawings overand thought of the price at which they had been bought.

The afternoon was well advanced when Torpenhow came to the door andsaw Dick dancing a wild saraband under the skylight.

'I builded better than I knew, Torp,' he said, without stopping the dance.

'They're good! They're damned good! They'll go like flame! I shall havean exhibition of them on my own brazen hook. And that man would havecheated me out of it! Do you know that I'm sorry now that I didn'tactually hit him?'

'Go out,' said Torpenhow,--'go out and pray to be delivered from the sinof arrogance, which you never will be. Bring your things up fromwhatever place you're staying in, and we'll try to make this barn a littlemore shipshape.'

The wolf-cub at even lay hid in the corn,When the smoke of the cooking hung gray:He knew where the doe made a couch for her fawn,And he looked to his strength for his prey.

But the moon swept the smoke-wreaths away.

And he turned from his meal in the villager's close,And he bayed to the moon as she rose.--In Seonee.?

'WELL, and how does success taste?' said Torpenhow, some threemonths later. He had just returned to chambers after a holiday in thecountry.

'Good,' said Dick, as he sat licking his lips before the easel in the studio.

'I want more,--heaps more. The lean years have passed, and I approve ofthese fat ones.'

'Be careful, old man. That way lies bad work.'

Torpenhow was sprawling in a long chair with a small fox-terrier asleepon his chest, while Dick was preparing a canvas. A dais, a background,and a lay-figure were the only fixed objects in the place. They rose froma wreck of oddments that began with felt-covered water-bottles, belts,and regimental badges, and ended with a small bale of second-handuniforms and a stand of mixed arms. The mark of muddy feet on the daisshowed that a military model had just gone away. The watery autumnsunlight was falling, and shadows sat in the corners of the studio.

'Yes,' said Dick, deliberately, 'I like the power; I like the fun; I like thefuss; and above all I like the money. I almost like the people who makethe fuss and pay the money. Almost. But they're a queer gang,--anamazingly queer gang!'

'They have been good enough to you, at any rate. Than tin-pot exhibitionof your sketches must have paid. Did you see that the papers called it the"Wild Work Show"?'

'Never mind. I sold every shred of canvas I wanted to; and, on my word,I believe it was because they believed I was a self-taught flagstone artist.

I should have got better prices if I worked my things on wool orscratched them on camel-bone instead of using mere black and white andcolour. Verily, they are a queer gang, these people. Limited isn't theword to describe 'em. I met a fellow the other day who told me that itwas impossible that shadows on white sand should beblue,--ultramarine,--as they are. I found out, later, that the man had beenas far as Brighton beach; but he knew all about Art, confound him. Hegave me a lecture on it, and recommended me to go to school to learntechnique. I wonder what old Kami would have said to that.'

'When were you under Kami, man of extraordinary beginnings?'

'I studied with him for two years in Paris. He taught by personalmagnetism. All he ever said was, "Continuez, mes enfants," and you hadto make the best you could of that. He had a divine touch, and he knewsomething about colour. Kami used to dream colour; I swear he couldnever have seen the genuine article; but he evolved it; and it was good.'

'Recollect some of those views in the Soudan?' said Torpenhow, with aprovoking drawl.

Dick squirmed in his place. 'Don't! It makes me want to get out thereagain. What colour that was! Opal and umber and amber and claret andbrick-red and sulphur--cockatoo-crest--sulphur--against brown, with anigger-black rock sticking up in the middle of it all, and a decorativefrieze of camels festooning in front of a pure pale turquoise sky.' Hebegan to walk up and down. 'And yet, you know, if you try to give thesepeople the thing as God gave it, keyed down to their comprehension andaccording to the powers He has given you----'

'Modest man! Go on.'

'Half a dozen epicene young pagans who haven't even been to Algierswill tell you, first, that your notion is borrowed, and, secondly, that itisn't Art.

''This comes of my leaving town for a month. Dickie, you've beenpromenading among the toy-shops and hearing people talk.'

'I couldn't help it,' said Dick, penitently. 'You weren't here, and it waslonely these long evenings. A man can't work for ever.'

'A man might have gone to a pub, and got decently drunk.'

'I wish I had; but I forgathered with some men of sorts. They said theywere artists, and I knew some of them could draw,--but they wouldn'tdraw. They gave me tea,--tea at five in the afternoon!--and talked aboutArt and the state of their souls. As if their souls mattered. I've heardmore about Art and seen less of her in the last six months than in thewhole of my life. Do you remember Cassavetti, who worked for somecontinental syndicate, out with the desert column? He was a regularChristmas-tree of contraptions when he took the field in full fig, with hiswater-bottle, lanyard, revolver, writing-case, housewife, gig-lamps, andthe Lord knows what all. He used to fiddle about with 'em and show ushow they worked; but he never seemed to do much except fudge hisreports from the Nilghai. See?'

'Dear old Nilghai! He's in town, fatter than ever. He ought to be up herethis evening. I see the comparison perfectly. You should have kept clearof all that man-millinery. Serves you right; and I hope it will unsettleyour mind.'

'It won't. It has taught me what Art--holy sacred Art--means.'

'You've learnt something while I've been away. What is Art?'

'Give 'em what they know, and when you've done it once do it again.'

Dick dragged forward a canvas laid face to the wall. 'Here's a sample ofreal Art. It's going to be a facsimile reproduction for a weekly. I called it"His Last Shot." It's worked up from the little water-colour I madeoutside El Maghrib. Well, I lured my model, a beautiful rifleman, uphere with drink; I drored him, and I redrored him, and I redrored him,and I made him a flushed, dishevelled, bedevilled scallawag, with hishelmet at the back of his head, and the living fear of death in his eye, andthe blood oozing out of a cut over his ankle-bone. He wasn't pretty, buthe was all soldier and very much man.'

'Once more, modest child!'

Dick laughed. 'Well, it's only to you I'm talking. I did him just as well asI knew how, making allowance for the slickness of oils. Then theart-manager of that abandoned paper said that his subscribers wouldn'tlike it. It was brutal and coarse and violent,--man being naturally gentlewhen he's fighting for his life. They wanted something more restful, witha little more colour. I could have said a good deal, but you might as welltalk to a sheep as an art-manager. I took my "Last Shot" back. Beholdthe result! I put him into a lovely red coat without a speck on it. That isArt. I polished his boots,--observe the high light on the toe. That is Art. Icleaned his rifle,--rifles are always clean on service,--because that is Art.

I pipeclayed his helmet,--pipeclay is always used on active service, and isindispensable to Art. I shaved his chin, I washed his hands, and gave himan air of fatted peace. Result, military tailor's pattern-plate. Price, thankHeaven, twice as much as for the first sketch, which was moderatelydecent.'

'And do you suppose you're going to give that thing out as your work?'

'Why not? I did it. Alone I did it, in the interests of sacred, home-bredArt and Dickenson's Weekly.'

Torpenhow smoked in silence for a while. Then came the verdict,delivered from rolling clouds: 'If you were only a mass of blatheringvanity, Dick, I wouldn't mind,--I'd let you go to the deuce on your ownmahl-stick; but when I consider what you are to me, and when I find thatto vanity you add the twopenny-halfpenny pique of a twelve-year-oldgirl, then I bestir myself in your behalf. Thus!'

'If you have any bad language to use, use it. You have not. I continue.

You are an idiot, because no man born of woman is strong enough to takeliberties with his public, even though they be--which they ain't--all yousay they are.'

'But they don't know any better. What can you expect from creaturesborn and bred in this light?' Dick pointed to the yellow fog. 'If they wantfurniture-polish, let them have furniture-polish, so long as they pay for it.

They are only men and women. You talk as if they were gods.'

'That sounds very fine, but it has nothing to do with the case. They arethey people you have to do work for, whether you like it or not. They areyour masters. Don't be deceived, Dickie, you aren't strong enough totrifle with them,--or with yourself, which is more important.

Moreover,--Come back, Binkie: that red daub isn't goinganywhere,--unless you take precious good care, you will fall under thedamnation of the check-book, and that's worse than death. You will getdrunk--you-re half drunk already--on easily acquired money. For thatmoney and you own infernal vanity you are willing to deliberately turnout bad work. You'll do quite enough bad work without knowing it. And,Dickie, as I love you and as I know you love me, I am not going to let youcut off your nose to spite your face for all the gold in England. That'ssettled. Now swear.'

'Don't know, said Dick. 'I've been trying to make myself angry, but Ican't, you're so abominably reasonable. There will be a row onDickenson's Weekly, I fancy.'

'Why the Dickenson do you want to work on a weekly paper? It's slowbleeding of power.'

'It brings in the very desirable dollars,' said Dick, his hands in hispockets.

Torpenhow watched him with large contempt. 'Why, I thought it was aman!' said he. 'It's a child.'

'No, it isn't,' said Dick, wheeling quickly. 'You've no notion owhat thecertainty of cash means to a man who has always wanted it badly.

Nothing will pay me for some of my life's joys; on that Chinese pig-boat,for instance, when we ate bread and jam for every meal, becauseHo-Wang wouldn't allow us anything better, and it all tasted ofpig,--Chinese pig. I've worked for this, I've sweated and I've starved forthis, line on line and month after month. And now I've got it I am goingto make the most of it while it lasts. Let them pay--they've no knowledge.'

'What does Your Majesty please to want? You can't smoke more thanyou do; you won't drink; you're a gross feeder; and you dress in thedark, by the look of you. You wouldn't keep a horse the other day when Isuggested, because, you said, it might fall lame, and whenever you crossthe street you take a hansom. Even you are not foolish enough to supposethat theatres and all the live things you can by thereabouts mean Life.

What earthly need have you for money?'

'It's there, bless its golden heart,' said Dick. 'It's there all the time.

Providence has sent me nuts while I have teeth to crack 'em with. Ihaven't yet found the nut I wish to crack, but I'm keeping my teeth filed.

Perhaps some day you and I will go for a walk round the wide earth.'

'With no work to do, nobody to worry us, and nobody to compete with?You would be unfit to speak to in a week. Besides, I shouldn't go. I don'tcare to profit by the price of a man's soul,--for that's what it would mean.

Dick, it's no use arguing. You're a fool.'

'Don't see it. When I was on that Chinese pig-boat, our captain got creditfor saving about twenty-five thousand very seasick little pigs, when ourold tramp of a steamer fell foul of a timber-junk. Now, taking those pigsas a parallel----'

'Oh, confound your parallels! Whenever I try to improve your soul, youalways drag in some anecdote from your very shady past. Pigs aren't theBritish public; and self-respect is self-respect the world over. Go out fora walk and try to catch some self-respect. And, I say, if the Nilghai comesup this evening can I show him your diggings?'

'Surely.' And Dick departed, to take counsel with himself in the rapidlygathering London fog.

Half an hour after he had left, the Nilghai laboured up the staircase. Hewas the chiefest, as he was the youngest, of the war correspondents, andhis experiences dated from the birth of the needle-gun. Saving only hisally, Keneu the Great War Eagle, there was no man higher in the craftthan he, and he always opened his conversation with the news that therewould be trouble in the Balkans in the spring. Torpenhow laughed as heentered.

'Never mind the trouble in the Balkans. Those little states are alwaysscreeching. You've heard about Dick's luck?'

'Yes; he has been called up to notoriety, hasn't he? I hope you keep himproperly humble. He wants suppressing from time to time.'

'He does. He's beginning to take liberties with what he thinks is hisreputation.'

'Already! By Jove, he has cheek! I don't know about his reputation, buthe'll come a cropper if he tries that sort of thing.'

'So I told him. I don't think he believes it.'

'They never do when they first start off. What's that wreck on theground there?'

'Specimen of his latest impertinence.' Torpenhow thrust the torn edges ofthe canvas together and showed the well-groomed picture to the Nilghai,who looked at it for a moment and whistled.

'It's a chromo,' said he,--'a chromo-litholeomargarine fake! Whatpossessed him to do it? And yet how thoroughly he has caught the notethat catches a public who think with their boots and read with theirelbows! The cold-blooded insolence of the work almost saves it; but hemustn't go on with this. Hasn't he been praised and cockered up toomuch? You know these people here have no sense of proportion. They'llcall him a second Detaille and a third-hand Meissonier while his fashionlasts. It's windy diet for a colt.'

'I don't think it affects Dick much. You might as well call a young wolf alion and expect him to take the compliment in exchange for a shin-bone.

Dick's soul is in the bank. He's working for cash.'

'Now he has thrown up war work, I suppose he doesn't see that theobligations of the service are just the same, only the proprietors arechanged.'

'How should he know? He thinks he is his own master.'

'Does he? I could undeceive him for his good, if there's any virtue inprint. He wants the whiplash.'

'Lay it on with science, then. I'd flay him myself, but I like him toomuch.'

'I've no scruples. He had the audacity to try to cut me out with a womanat Cairo once. I forgot that, but I remember now.'

'Did he cut you out?'

'You'll see when I have dealt with him. But, after all, what's the good?Leave him alone and he'll come home, if he has any stuff in him,dragging or wagging his tail behind him. There's more in a week of lifethan in a lively weekly. None the less I'll slate him. I'll slate himponderously in the Cataclysm.'

'Good luck to you; but I fancy nothing short of a crowbar would makeDick wince. His soul seems to have been fired before we came across him.

He's intensely suspicious and utterly lawless.'

'Matter of temper,' said the Nilghai. 'It's the same with horses. Some youwallop and they work, some you wallop and they jib, and some youwallop and they go out for a walk with their hands in their pockets.'

'That's exactly what Dick has done,' said Torpenhow. 'Wait till he comesback. In the meantime, you can begin your slating here. I'll show yousome of his last and worst work in his studio.'

Dick had instinctively sought running water for a comfort to his mood ofmind. He was leaning over the Embankment wall, watching the rush ofthe Thames through the arches of Westminster Bridge. He began bythinking of Torpenhow's advice, but, as of custom, lost himself in thestudy of the faces flocking past. Some had death written on theirfeatures, and Dick marvelled that they could laugh. Others, clumsy andcoarse-built for the most part, were alight with love; others were merelydrawn and lined with work; but there was something, Dick knew, to bemade out of them all. The poor at least should suffer that he might learn,and the rich should pay for the output of his learning. Thus his credit inthe world and his cash balance at the bank would be increased. So muchthe better for him. He had suffered. Now he would take toll of the ills ofothers.

The fog was driven apart for a moment, and the sun shone, a blood-redwafer, on the water. Dick watched the spot till he heard the voice of thetide between the piers die down like the wash of the sea at low tide. A girlhard pressed by her lover shouted shamelessly, 'Ah, get away, you beast!'

and a shift of the same wind that had opened the fog drove across Dick'sface the black smoke of a river-steamer at her berth below the wall. Hewas blinded for the moment, then spun round and found himself face toface with--Maisie.

There was no mistaking. The years had turned the child to a woman, butthey had not altered the dark-gray eyes, the thin scarlet lips, or thefirmly modelled mouth and chin; and, that all should be as it was of old,she wore a closely fitting gray dress.

Since the human soul is finite and not in the least under its owncommand, Dick, advancing, said 'Halloo!' after the manner ofschoolboys, and Maisie answered, 'Oh, Dick, is that you?' Then, againsthis will, and before the brain newly released from considerations of thecash balance had time to dictate to the nerves, every pulse of Dick's bodythrobbed furiously and his palate dried in his mouth. The fog shut downagain, and Maisie's face was pearl-white through it. No word wasspoken, but Dick fell into step at her side, and the two paced theEmbankment together, keeping the step as perfectly as in their afternoonexcursions to the mud-flats. Then Dick, a little hoarsely--'What has happened to Amomma?'

'Oh, I'm in the north,--the black north, across all the Park. I am verybusy.'

'What do you do?'

'I paint a great deal. That's all I have to do.'

'Why, what's happened? You had three hundred a year.'

'I have that still. I am painting; that's all.'

'Are you alone, then?'

'There's a girl living with me. Don't walk so fast, Dick; you're out ofstep.'

'Then you noticed it too?'

'Of course I did. You're always out of step.'

'So I am. I'm sorry. You went on with the painting?'

'Of course. I said I should. I was at the Slade, then at Merton's in St.

John's Wood, the big studio, then I pepper-potted,--I mean I went to theNational,--and now I'm working under Kami.'

'But Kami is in Paris surely?'

'No; he has his teaching studio in Vitry-sur-Marne. I work with him inthe summer, and I live in London in the winter. I'm a householder.'

'Do you sell much?'

'Now and again, but not often. There is my 'bus. I must take it or losehalf an hour. Good-bye, Dick.'

'Good-bye, Maisie. Won't you tell me where you live? I must see youagain; and perhaps I could help you. I--I paint a little myself.'

'I may be in the Park to-morrow, if there is no working light. I walk fromthe Marble Arch down and back again; that is my little excursion. But ofcourse I shall see you again.' She stepped into the omnibus and wasswallowed up by the fog.

'Well--I--am--damned!' exclaimed Dick, and returned to the chambers.

Torpenhow and the Nilghai found him sitting on the steps to the stgudiodoor, repeating the phrase with an awful gravity.

'You'll be more damned when I'm done with you,' said the Nilghai,upheaving his bulk from behind Torpenhow's shoulder and waving asheaf of half-dry manuscript. 'Dick, it is of common report that you aresuffering from swelled head.'

'Halloo, Nilghai. Back again? How are the Balkans and all the littleBalkans? One side of your face is out of drawing, as usual.'

'Never mind that. I am commissioned to smite you in print. Torpenhowrefuses from false delicacy. I've been overhauling the pot-boilers in yourstudio. They are simply disgraceful.'

'Oho! that's it, is it? If you think you can slate me, you're wrong. Youcan only describe, and you need as much room to turn in, on paper, as aP. and O. cargo-boat. But continue, and be swift. I'm going to bed.'

'H'm! h'm! h'm! The first part only deals with your pictures. Here's theperoration: "For work done without conviction, for power wasted ontrivialities, for labour expended with levity for the deliberate purpose ofwinning the easy applause of a fashion-driven public----"'That's "His Last Shot," second edition. Go on.'

'----"public, there remains but one end,--the oblivion that is preceded bytoleration and cenotaphed with contempt. From that fate Mr. Heldar hasyet to prove himself out of danger.'

'Wow--wow--wow--wow--wow!' said Dick, profanely. 'It's a clumsy endingand vile journalese, but it's quite true. And yet,'--he sprang to his feetand snatched at the manuscript,--'you scarred, deboshed, battered oldgladiator! you're sent out when a war begins, to minister to the blind,brutal, British public's bestial thirst for blood. They have no arenas now,but they must have special correspondents. You're a fat gladiator whocomes up through a trap-door and talks of what he's seen. You stand onprecisely the same level as an energetic bishop, an affable actress, adevastating cyclone, or--mine own sweet self. And you presume to lectureme about my work! Nilghai, if it were worth while I'd caricature you infour papers!'

The Nilghai winced. He had not thought of this.

'As it is, I shall take this stuff and tear it small--so!' The manuscriptfluttered in slips down the dark well of the staircase. 'Go home, Nilghai,'

said Dick; 'go home to your lonely little bed, and leave me in peace. I amabout to turn in till to-morrow.'

'Why, it isn't seven yet!' said Torpenhow, with amazement.

'It shall be two in the morning, if I choose,' said Dick, backing to thestudio door. 'I go to grapple with a serious crisis, and I shan't want anydinner.'

The door shut and was locked.

'What can you do with a man like that?' said the Nilghai.

'Leave him alone. He's as mad as a hatter.'

At eleven there was a kicking on the studio door. 'Is the Nilghai with youstill?' said a voice from within. 'Then tell him he might have condensedthe whole of his lumbering nonsense into an epigram: "Only the free arebond, and only the bond are free." Tell him he's an idiot, Torp, and tellhim I'm another.'

'All right. Come out and have supper. You're smoking on an emptystomach.'

There was no answer.

CHAPTER V

'I have a thousand men,' said he,'To wait upon my will,And towers nine upon the Tyne,And three upon the Till.'?

'And what care I for you men,' said she,'Or towers from Tyne to Till,Sith you must go with me,' she said,'To wait upon my will?'

Sir Hoggie and the Fairies

NEXT morning Torpenhow found Dick sunk in deepest repose oftobacco.

'Well, madman, how d'you feel?'

'I don't know. I'm trying to find out.'

'You had much better do some work.'

'Maybe; but I'm in no hurry. I've made a discovery. Torp, there's toomuch Ego in my Cosmos.'

'Not really! Is this revelation due to my lectures, or the Nilghai's?'

'It came to me suddenly, all on my own account. Much too much Ego;and now I'm going to work.'

He turned over a few half-finished sketches, drummed on a new canvas,cleaned three brushes, set Binkie to bite the toes of the lay figure, rattledthrough his collection of arms and accoutrements, and then went outabruptly, declaring that he had done enough for the day.

'This is positively indecent,' said Torpenhow, 'and the first time thatDick has ever broken up a light morning. Perhaps he has found out thathe has a soul, or an artistic temperament, or something equally valuable.

That comes of leaving him alone for a month. Perhaps he has been goingout of evenings. I must look to this.' He rang for the bald-headed oldhousekeeper, whom nothing could astonish or annoy.

'Beeton, did Mr. Heldar dine out at all while I was out of town?'

'Never laid 'is dress-clothes out once, sir, all the time. Mostly 'e dined in;but 'e brought some most remarkable young gentlemen up 'ere aftertheatres once or twice. Remarkable fancy they was. You gentlemen onthe top floor does very much as you likes, but it do seem to me, sir,droppin' a walkin'-stick down five flights o' stairs an' then goin' downfour abreast to pick it up again at half-past two in the mornin', singin'

"Bring back the whiskey, Willie darlin,'"--not once or twice, but scoreso' times,--isn't charity to the other tenants. What I say is, "Do as youwould be done by." That's my motto.'

'Of course! of course! I'm afraid the top floor isn't the quietest in thehouse.'

'I make no complaints, sir. I have spoke to Mr. Heldar friendly, an' helaughed, an' did me a picture of the missis that is as good as a colouredprint. It 'asn't the high shine of a photograph, but what I say is, "Neverlook a gift-horse in the mouth." Mr. Heldar's dress-clothes 'aven't beenon him for weeks.'

'Then it's all right,' said Torpenhow to himself. 'Orgies are healthy, andDick has a head of his own, but when it comes to women making eyes I'mnot so certain,--Binkie, never you be a man, little dorglums. They'recontrary brutes, and they do things without any reason.'

Dick had turned northward across the Park, but he was walking in thespirit on the mud-flats with Maisie. He laughed aloud as he rememberedthe day when he had decked Amomma's horns with the ham-frills, andMaisie, white with rage, had cuffed him. How long those four yearsseemed in review, and how closely Maisie was connected with every hourof them! Storm across the sea, and Maisie in a gray dress on the beach,sweeping her drenched hair out of her eyes and laughing at thehomeward race of the fishing-smacks; hot sunshine on the mud-flats, andMaisie sniffing scornfully, with her chin in the air; Maisie flying beforethe wind that threshed the foreshore and drove the sand like small shotabout her ears; Maisie, very composed and independent, telling lies toMrs. Jennett while Dick supported her with coarser perjuries; Maisiepicking her way delicately from stone to stone, a pistol in her hand andher teeth firm-set; and Maisie in a gray dress sitting on the grassbetween the mouth of a cannon and a nodding yellow sea-poppy. Thepictures passed before him one by one, and the last stayed the longest.

Dick was perfectly happy with a quiet peace that was as new to his mindas it was foreign to his experiences. It never occurred to him that theremight be other calls upon his time than loafing across the Park in theforenoon.

'There's a good working light now,' he said, watching his shadowplacidly. 'Some poor devil ought to be grateful for this. And there'sMaisie.'

She was walking towards him from the Marble Arch, and he saw that nomannerism of her gait had been changed. It was good to find her stillMaisie, and, so to speak, his next-door neighbour. No greeting passedbetween them, because there had been none in the old days.

'What are you doing out of your studio at this hour?' said Dick, as onewho was entitled to ask.

'Idling. Just idling. I got angry with a chin and scraped it out. Then I leftit in a little heap of paint-chips and came away.'

'I know what palette-knifing means. What was the piccy?'

'A fancy head that wouldn't come right,--horrid thing!'

'I don't like working over scraped paint when I'm doing flesh. The graincomes up woolly as the paint dries.'

'Not if you scrape properly.' Maisie waved her hand to illustrate hermethods. There was a dab of paint on the white cuff. Dick laughed.

'You're as untidy as ever.'

'That comes well from you. Look at your own cuff.'

'By Jove, yes! It's worse than yours. I don't think we've much altered inanything. Let's see, though.' He looked at Maisie critically. The pale bluehaze of an autumn day crept between the tree-trunks of the Park andmade a background for the gray dress, the black velvet toque above theblack hair, and the resolute profile.

'No, there's nothing changed. How good it is! D'you remember when Ifastened your hair into the snap of a hand-bag?'

Maisie nodded, with a twinkle in her eyes, and turned her full face toDick.

'Wait a minute,' said he. 'That mouth is down at the corners a little.

Who's been worrying you, Maisie?'

'No one but myself. I never seem to get on with my work, and yet I tryhard enough, and Kami says----'

'Yes, that's what he says. He told me last summer that I was doing betterand he'd let me exhibit this year.'

'Not in this place, surely?'

'Of course not. The Salon.'

'You fly high.'

'I've been beating my wings long enough. Where do you exhibit, Dick?'

'I don't exhibit. I sell.'

'What is your line, then?'

'Haven't you heard?' Dick's eyes opened. Was this thing possible? Hecast about for some means of conviction. They were not far from theMarble Arch. 'Come up Oxford Street a little and I'll show you.'

A small knot of people stood round a print-shop that Dick knew well.

'Some reproduction of my work inside,' he said, with suppressedtriumph. Never before had success tasted so sweet upon the tongue. 'Yousee the sort of things I paint. D'you like it?'

Maisie looked at the wild whirling rush of a field-battery going intoaction under fire. Two artillery-men stood behind her in the crowd.

'They've chucked the off lead-'orse' said one to the other. ''E's tore upawful, but they're makin' good time with the others. That lead-driverdrives better nor you, Tom. See 'ow cunnin' 'e's nursin' 'is 'orse.'

Dick watched Maisie's face and swelled with joy--fine, rank, vulgartriumph. She was more interested in the little crowd than in the picture.

That was something that she could understand.

'And I wanted it so! Oh, I did want it so!' she said at last, under herbreath.

'Me,--all me!' said Dick, placidly. 'Look at their faces. It hits 'em. Theydon't know what makes their eyes and mouths open; but I know. And Iknow my work's right.'

'Yes. I see. Oh, what a thing to have come to one!'

'Come to one, indeed! I had to go out and look for it. What do you think?'

'I call it success. Tell me how you got it.'

They returned to the Park, and Dick delivered himself of the saga of hisown doings, with all the arrogance of a young man speaking to a woman.

From the beginning he told the tale, the I--I--I's flashing through therecords as telegraph-poles fly past the traveller. Maisie listened andnodded her head. The histories of strife and privation did not move her ahair's-breadth. At the end of each canto he would conclude, 'And thatgave me some notion of handling colour,' or light, or whatever it mightbe that he had set out to pursue and understand. He led her breathlessacross half the world, speaking as he had never spoken in his life before.

And in the flood-tide of his exaltation there came upon him a great desireto pick up this maiden who nodded her head and said, 'I understand. Goon,'--to pick her up and carry her away with him, because she wasMaisie, and because she understood, and because she was his right, and awoman to be desired above all women.

Then he checked himself abruptly. 'And so I took all I wanted,' he said,'and I had to fight for it. Now you tell.'

Maisie's tale was almost as gray as her dress. It covered years of patienttoil backed by savage pride that would not be broken thought dealerslaughed, and fogs delayed work, and Kami was unkind and evensarcastic, and girls in other studios were painfully polite. It had a fewbright spots, in pictures accepted at provincial exhibitions, but it woundup with the oft repeated wail, 'And so you see, Dick, I had no success,though I worked so hard.'

Then pity filled Dick. Even thus had Maisie spoken when she could nothit the breakwater, half an hour before she had kissed him. And that hadhappened yesterday.

Maisie flushed a little. 'It's all very well for you to talk, but you've hadthe success and I haven't.'

'Let me talk, then. I know you'll understand. Maisie, dear, it sounds a bitabsurd, but5 those ten years never existed, and I've come back again. Itreally is just the same. Can't you see? You're alone now and I'm alone.

What's the use of worrying? Come to me instead, darling.'

Maisie poked the gravel with her parasol. They were sitting on a bench.

'I understand,' she said slowly. 'But I've got my work to do, and I mustdo it.'

'Do it with me, then, dear. I won't interrupt.'

'No, I couldn't. It's my work,--mine,--mine,--mine! I've been alone all mylife in myself, and I'm not going to belong to anybody except myself. Iremember things as well as you do, but that doesn't count. We werebabies then, and we didn't know what was before us. Dick, don't beselfish. I think I see my way to a little success next year. Don't take itaway from me.'

'I beg your pardon, darling. It's my fault for speaking stupidly. I can'texpect you to throw up all your life just because I'm back. I'll go to myown place and wait a little.'

'But, Dick, I don't want you to--go--out of--my life, now you've just comeback.'

'I'm at your orders; forgive me.' Dick devoured the troubled little facewith his eyes. There was triumph in them, because he could not conceivethat Maisie should refuse sooner or later to love him, since he loved her.

'It's wrong of me,' said Maisie, more slowly than before; 'it's wrong andselfish; but, oh, I've been so lonely! No, you misunderstand. Now I'veseen you again,--it's absurd, but I want to keep you in my life.'

'Naturally. We belong.'

'We don't; but you always understood me, and there is so much in mywork that you could help me in. You know things and the ways of doingthings. You must.'

'I do, I fancy, or else I don't know myself. Then you won't care to losesight of me altogether, and--you want me to help you in your work?'

'Yes; but remember, Dick, nothing will ever come of it. That's why I feelso selfish. Can't things stay as they are? I do want your help.'

'You shall have it. But let's consider. I must see your pics first, and